Although Mr. Guy will continue to advise the Liberals, his decision will
likely place more responsibility in the hands of Tom Allison, who ran
Ms. Wynne’s leadership campaign this past winter and will step into that
job in a general election. Ms. Wynne’s principal secretary, Andrew
Bevan, is also expected to play a senior strategic role, as is Liberal
backroom veteran David Herle.

“I’m calling her out — call an election, Kathleen Wynne, in May and I
will run — I will guarantee it and we will defeat you and we will make
sure the fiscal ship of this province is going in the right direction,”
Ford declared on the The John Oakley Morning Show Wednesday. “If she
calls it in May I’m going because this province right now is in deep
trouble.”

To help him improve, Hudak is using the services of Greener and Hook,
a high-profile Alexandria, Va., political consultancy firm that does
work for Republican clients such as House Majority Leader John Boehner
and one-time presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann.

The increased amount of spending on the part of so-called "third-party" groups (a confusing term if ever there was one) during elections has not gone unnoticed.

Essensa notes that only one third party raised and spent more than $1
million on political ads in 2007. But in 2011, three third-party groups
exceeded this threshold, with the ETFO representing the largest single
spender at nearly $2.7 million.

A gaping loophole in Ontario’s election finance rules allows so-called
“third party” interest groups to dodge campaign spending limits. They’re
increasingly using this lack of oversight to outspend bona fide
political parties and sway the results of a vote. And that isn’t healthy
for democracy.

Perhaps the NDP's list of micro-demands are a very deft move, as Horwath's reasonable gains for various constituencies in the middle of a jobs crisis wouldn't be seen as precipitating an election. If she obtains them, people may thank her. If she does not, and the Liberals take a my-way-or-the-highway approach to the budget, causing an election, the Liberals will look bad for having nothing to offer on youth unemployment.

The prize of earning Official Opposition status might be very
valuable symbolically for the NDP, even though it would actually
represent a net loss of power for them.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

What exactly happened in Ontario's 2011 election? How did we go from a Liberal majority to a "major minority?" To find out, we took another look at our Ontario clusters, this time checking out who each cluster supported in 2007, which we added to our analysis from the other day. Then we added our signature, 4am-style commentary to the whole shebang.